Who else could it have been? That time before she left. All those times with Jasper, when he wanted her there but didn’t want her. This was Milo’s baby. She wouldn’t have looked for him otherwise. She wouldn’t be there. She wouldn’t smell so good to him, wouldn’t be sleeping in bed with him every night, if it wasn’t his.

He said, “Thinking again of going back to Manchester, yeah? See me ma, just for a bit.”

Bridey stood in the shallow waves, shells cupped in an upturned hand. “Why?” she said.

“It’s on my mind. You’d like Colleen. You’d get along.”

She’d need to be somewhere for a while once the baby was born. He could get a job.

Bridey walked out into the waves, hair whipping against her face in the wind.

“You could come with me and stay for a while,” he called.

She walked out farther. Slipped beneath the next cold blue crest and swam.